UPDATE – 15 Apr 07: I’ve now had time to apply the registry tweak suggested by Intel to address this issue. For me, it works! I can now use my Maxtor drives in the system with zero iastor errors.

Note that I have NOT tried to install Vista using the higher-numbered ports on the ICH8R controller, so I don’t know whether that part of the fix works.

Here’s what my registry looked like before the fix (click on the thumbnail for a full-sized view):

And after:

========================================

FLASH UPDATE – 2 Apr 07: Finally the vendor community has stopped pointing fingers at each other and recognised the problem – well, sort of.

Special thanks to commentor Håkan Andersson for linking to this page on intel.com. In summary, Intel claims that Microsoft made changes to the Vista installation process that resulted in some disc power management features being activated for desktop PCs as well as for laptops. Desktop drives that don’t correctly implement the power management features then cause probles such as we have all experienced (and as are set out in the many fora linked below).

Intel suggests a number of workarounds. I haven’t yet tried any. My initial comments on the workarounds are:

if available, install updated firmware for the device

I have latest firmware on my motherboard, and it makes no difference

I have installed latest firmware to my Maxtor HDDs and it makes no difference

switch to IDE mode in the system BIOS

this is not a viable workaround if you actually want to use the RAID features of the controller (which features are not available in IDE mode)

this suggestion holds the most promise — perhaps it disables the unnecessary power management features.

If you try out Intel’s suggestions, please post your results as a comment.

========================================

Update – 19 Mar 07: after many hours of work I have uncovered strong evidence of a conflict between certain Maxtor hard drives and the Vista/ICH8R combination. The symptms of the conflict are listed below.

I have COMPLETELY removed the problem from my system by replacing ALL Maxtor drives with other brands (I avoided Seagate as my supplier says that, since Seagate bought Maxtor, the Maxtor drives are just rebrands).

I have received new firmware from Maxtor and will install it when I get a chance, to see whether it helps.

For more details, see (especially) the first of the Asus threads listed below, and also the Microsoft TechNet thread.

The problems appear on PCs in which the hard drives are connected to Intel’s Matrix Storage controllers. It’s not completely clear which products are effected. Here is the list of members of the Matrix Storage product family:

Intel® 82801HR/HH/HO I/O controller hub (ICH8R) – RAID and AHCI

Intel® 631xESB/632xESB I/O Controller Hub – RAID and AHCI

Intel® 82801GHM I/O Controller Hub (ICH7MDH) – RAID only

Intel® 82801GBM I/O Controller Hub (ICH7M) – AHCI only

Intel® 82801GR I/O Controller Hub (ICH7R) – RAID and AHCI

Intel® 82801GH I/O Controller Hub (ICH7DH) – RAID and AHCI

Intel® 82801FR I/O Controller Hub (ICH6R) – RAID and AHCI

Intel® 82801FBM I/O Controller Hub (ICH6M) – AHCI only.

These controllers are widely used on motherboards based around the various Intel chipset families. The chipsets are:

Intel® G965 Express Chipset

Intel® P965 Express Chipset

Intel® Q963 Express Chipset

Intel® Q965 Express Chipset

Intel® 5000P Chipset

Intel® 5000V Chipset

Intel® 5000X Chipset

Intel® 975X Express Chipset

Intel® 955X Express Chipset

Intel® 945 Express Chipset family

Mobile Intel® 945 Express Chipset family

Intel® E7230 Chipset

Intel® 925X Express Chipset family

Intel® 915 Express Chipset family

Mobile Intel® 915 Express Chipset family

Intel® 910GL Express Chipset

Mobile Intel® 910GML Express Chipset

It’s quite possible that not all of these chipsets are effected.

Problems appear to be evident for all types of RAID configuration (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, RAID 5) supported on these controllers.

So, what’s the problem?

Symptoms vary, but all of the following have been observed (not all at once!):

* It’s not possible to do a ‘clean install’ of Windows Vista. The installation often freezes with the Microsoft copyright notice on the screen, and with the green progress bar (sometimes known as the ‘Cylon Eye’) moving across the screen.
* It’s not possible to complete a Vista upgrade from Windows XP. The first part of the upgrade process appears to go OK (‘hosted’ by Windows XP) but when the PC reboots to let Vista take over and complete the process, the system freezes with symptoms similar to the above.
* Some users get repeated ‘STOP ERROR’ failures – often with error code Stop: 0x0000007b.
* Some users see system random system slow downs and freezes. Error logs show that this is because of ‘iastor not responding’. (Iastor is Intel’s driver for the RAID controller.)
* Some users have seen random data corruption and/or reboots (BSoD).

In most cases, evidence seems to point to the Intel RAID drivers as the root cause of the problem. There is some evidence of conflicts and/or incompatibility between the Intel controller and certain Marvell Yukon LAN controllers – but this is not always the case.

Motherboards manufactured by Asus and Gigabyte are impacted, as are those used by Dell in various systems. Other manufacturers’ products may also be hit.

Current status

Many users have reported problems to Intel and/or their motherboard manufacturer. So far, Intel and Asus seem to be having difficulty reproducing the fault in lab conditions. The various players seem reluctant to acknowledge the existence of a widespread fault.

There is no ‘silver bullet’ fix.

Many workarounds have been suggested. Different workarounds work for different people. For some users, no workaround seems to provide a solution that allows the RAID array to function under Vista.

Strong evidence suggests that the early Vista builds (Beta builds – prior to RC builds) worked OK, and that the problem has crept in recently.

In almost every case, the systems worked fine under RAID when using Windows XP. This seems to suggest a software error rather than hardware problems.

In almost every case, reconfiguring the Intel controller to work in IDE mode (this reconfiguration must be made in the motherboard’s BIOS settings) allows Vista to be installed and work fine. However, for most users this is only a short term workaround. There’s a reason to use RAID (speed increase under RAID 0, redundancy under RAID 1) – and it’s not possible to enjoy those RAID benefits in IDE mode.

Active discussions

I’ve collected all the active discussions of this problem that I can find on the web. Please add a comment if you find another, and I’ll put it on the list.

Microsoft TechNet: this is the motherlode, folks. A very long and detailed discussion of the problem, spanning Asus, Gigabyte and Dell products. Many workarounds discussed.

Dell Forums: a discussion about the problem as manifested on Dell systems. Some evidence here that the problem is exacerbated when SATA optical drives are also connected to the Intel controller.

Tom’s Hardware: a discussion of the problem appearing on Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 motherboards.

I have an Intel 955XBK board running RAID 5 – I installed Vista Business with absolutely no installation problems whatsoever. From all the posts I read I must just be the luckiest guy in the world, as I have checked all 6,259 events in my log from my installation in the first week of February and have no iastor errors at all. I am also running Seagate SATA drives (Gen 1) and Intel Storage Matrix Manager 6.2. Is it possible the issues are stemming from the SATA II drives rather than the iastor driver and Vista?

Check this forum for a solution that works on Dell DM061/E520 and 9200. E520 has the 828101 controller and he G965 chipset. Can’t explain why this gets around the RAID issue, but it sure gets rid of the iaStorV problem and the associated freezes.

I concur with your first three comments regarding Intels lame response to this problem as I have four hard disks purchased for the purpose of RAIDing:

I also have latest firmware on my motherboard, and it makes no difference

I also have latest firmware on my Maxtor HDDs and it makes no difference

My system:
-ASUS P5B Deluxe WiFi with latest firmware
-Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD-00NLR1 Non Raided SATA Boot disk
-RAID 1 “User Data” disk consisting of two Maxtor 6V320F0 both with VA111900 firmware
-RAID 0 “Video Data” disk consisting of two Maxtor 6V320F0 both with VA111900 firmware
-6.2.1.1002 Intel Driver
-Vista Ultimate 64 Bit Full Edition
Steps taken:
– Initially no huge probs intalling Vista as it was installed on the Raptor Sata. However system was jerky and slow responding due to multiple iaStor errors on the RAIDed drives.
– Disconnected RAIDed drives due to errors and system behaved much faster on single unRAIDed Raptor boot disk. No iastore.exe errors.
– Deleted iaStorV registry parameters as per Intel fix. (Itels other lame ass solutions were unacceptable).
– Reconnected and reformed both RAID sets using CTRL-I at boot.
– Boot was slow. I had 30 iastor.exe errors listed in the log.
– I shutdown and entered BIOS.
– I activated ACPI 2.0 as indicated by refalo on 29/03/2007 on the ASUS forum here:http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&id=20070213235101731&board_id=1&model=P5B%20Deluxe&page=3&count=24
– Rebooted and still no joy. More iastore.exe errors.
– Disconnected RAIDed sets.
– Wrote this message.

Pull your finger out Intel and deliver new drivers now!!

on 03 Apr 2007 at 4:14 (Sydney) 7.Dale WIlson said …

On 3/30/2007, Dell released a firmware update for the Phillips DROM6316 HH SATA 16x DVDROM and on 3/25/2007 a BIOS update for the DM061/E520 machines. I applied both of these this AM and restored my cable connections (4 to 1 and 5 to 4)to the original factory configuration and reset in SETUP. I have now been running over 3 hours without a freeze. My machine is an E520 running Home Premium. I don’t have any advice for 9200 users, but this might be worth checking out.

on 03 Apr 2007 at 8:12 (Sydney) 8.Mark Dizik said …

Does anyone know if you can use vLite to remove the Intel Matrix Systorage Manager Link Power Management (LPM) registry settings so that we can get around this problem?

on 04 Apr 2007 at 15:02 (Sydney) 9.Nathan said …

I concur that the Intel work-around is a bunch of bunk. I deleted the registry keys and still get my hard drive freezing up (iaStore errors in the system log) and blue-screening in Vista. I sure fire way to blue screen Vista with Intel RAID SATA (Maxtor) disks is to run iTunes and try downloading (video?) podcasts or watching videos in it.

on 05 Apr 2007 at 17:11 (Sydney) 10.Roy Sonnega said …

I didn’t have any problems with installing Vista on my system (only very, very slow, because of the timeouts), and I didnt have any blue screens of death. I only got those very annoying iastor timeouts, every couple of minutes for about 30 seconds.

My problem, those timeouts, is solved by removing the 2 registry keys explained in that Intel KB article. I have deleted the parameter keys in both the ‘isastor’ key, and the ‘iastorV’ key.

Im glad Intel has finaly recordnized the problem. Im very happy with this solution! To bad they kept us in the dark for such a long time.

on 06 Apr 2007 at 15:29 (Sydney) 11.wazzamagoo said …

Looks like I jumped the gun!! See my configuration above. I looked at what others are doing in regards to deleting both sets of parameter keys and did the same to my ‘iastor’ key. This is not entirely clear on first read of the Intel page but what they are actually saying is that LPM is activated on any instance of this driver installed during the installation process (or after as I have found) and that you need to delete the parameters for all instances of ‘iastor’ or ‘iastorV’. Initially I did this only for the ‘iastorV’ registry key (V being the one that came packaged with Vista) that is why I had no change as I had installed and was now using the new ‘iastor’. Upon clearing this key I then pluged in my RAID 0 “Video Data” disk consisting of two Maxtor 6V320F0 both with VA111900 firmware. These are on ports 2 and 3 respectively. I was then able to format this disk with NTFS and read/write data. I then proceeded to plug in my RAID 1 “User Data” disk consisting of two Maxtor 6V320F0 both with VA111900 firmware. These disks are on ports 0 and 1 respectively. I was then able to format this disk with NTFS and read/write data.
My Western Digital Raptor WD740ADFD00NLR1 Non Raided SATA “Boot” disk is connected on port 4.
Yes you read correctly, I now have 5 HDDs connected on my controller with only port 5 spare. Through all of this I have had no Event 9 iastor errors.
I suppose Intel published a fix all in regards to them advising us to use ports 3, 4 and 5. They were perhaps trying to solve other problems involving hardware conflict with the lower ports 0, 1 and 2. So far I do not have any conflicts, but neither do I have any confidence in placing any valueble data on these drives. Can someone shed light on why we were advised to do this. Do we have two issues? Port conflict issues and LPM issues?

For install Vista I must unplug the hard disks and set the BIOS in P-ATA mode otherwise the installation hang at first reboot at the 7th green “Cylon eye”. After the installation finish I plug the hard disk and activate the Intel raid controller (ICH7R) and from it sometimes Vista boot and sometimes not (boot hangs at first Cylon eye). I tried the registry way with no success. I also found the Intel Storage Matrix 7.0 driver BETA but I have fear to use it. Someone has an idea when Microsoft / Intel give a REAL solution to it? Is possible from XP to see a Vista log file to watch where installation fail?

Thanks

Ugo

on 07 Apr 2007 at 0:05 (Sydney) 13.Roy Sonnega said …

If I read the intel website correctly, the advice to only use port 3,4 or 5, is only for those who cant install or boot Windows Vista correctly. For me, this is not the case. Im using port 0, 2 and 3, and I dont have any problems whatsoever.

So, to summarize the Intel solution:

– Delete the registry key ‘parameter’ in both ‘iastor’ and ‘iastorV’ keys if you have timeout (event 9) problems.

– Only use port 3, 4 or 5 if you have problems installing or booting into vista.

I think thats about it…

on 07 Apr 2007 at 20:35 (Sydney) 14.Simon said …

Gigabyte GA-965P-DS4
3x WD 1500ADFD Raid 5 config

Timeout every 10 minutes with heavy load once a minute
After updating to driver 6.2.1 even had some BSODs

Just another data point for your analysis: We just built a Vista Ultimate box around an Intel DG965OTMKR main board with one Seagate SATA 300 drive configured as single drive RAID. Installation was and operation has been solid; no glitches. All firmware and drivers are current.

on 12 Apr 2007 at 9:13 (Sydney) 16.equake said …

The workaround had my install working fine on 2xWD 400GB drivers with OOB drivers. My config is has the drives plugged into Port 4&5 on a Tyan i5000XT ESB2 board running RAID 0. No more error occurred degraded RAID arrays.

on 12 Apr 2007 at 20:40 (Sydney) 17.Håkan Andersson said …

Who should we look to for providing a workable solution to the problem. Can it be fixed by Intel just releasing a new version of Matrix Storage (including f6-disks) or will it also require involvement from Microsoft?

Lets keep up the pressure!

on 12 Apr 2007 at 23:39 (Sydney) 18.Roy Sonnega said …

I hope Intel will come with new drivers which will modify the registry for us! This will certainly speed up the installation process when we load this driver with F6!

If Microsoft comes with a solution, we will probably need to slipstream certain patches, and create a new installation CD. Slipstreaming updates is a pretty advanced operation, so I hope Intel can provide the fix through new drivers.

on 13 Apr 2007 at 5:13 (Sydney) 19.JRP said …

OK I have tried them all – I have an ASROCK ConRoeXFire-eSATA2 and since I installed Vista I have had nothing but hassle.

The first 3 did not work for me, I have now moved my HDD’s onto ports 3+4 and I will let you know how I get on.

I have had similar trouble with older iron and plain WinXP,
and I have made a report and a testcase about that.
The cure was to stop using Intel chipset
and go to VIA (even older iron).
Have a look if you are interested.

I have just the same problem with an dell D9200 and after hours of talking with the dell hotlnie and installing my win vista 3 times they told me its just because i dont use the DELL OEM Version. Is it true? DO you use the dell Vista Versions or other ones? I bought a new Windows Vista ultimate cause they still didnt send me my win vista… Cause the drivers i can download from the dell website, guess they are from Jan/Feb07 dont work for me but they said they should… So what would you do in my case? just disable the Raid Systdem? By the way, how did you apply the registry tweak ? Cause i disabled the Power Management by myself but it still happend after i had problem with a programm that crashed…

on 19 Apr 2007 at 6:32 (Sydney) 23.Jörg Holzapfel said …

I have the same problem on a brand new DELL 9200 (Vista Ultimate 32Bit). I got a new mainboard an new disks from DELL, did some switching of the SATA ports and everything I could find in the net, which could be helpful, including the solutions INTEL suggests, but the problem was still there. I tried all drivers available from Intel even the brand new 7.x.x which is not directly downloadable and supported from Intel, I got it from a driver site. Nothing works.

I discovered, that, in my config, mainly Quicktime causes the event 9 and sometimes 5 in vistas eventlog. It seems like everytime Itunes or other applications touch movie files which are registered to Quicktime the problem occures. I found no other application causing these events. It seems to have something to do with the way Quicktime accesses the files. Could someone verify this on his config? Could someone who thinks his system is clean now, try something with Quicktime or Itunes and some movie files?

I never had the regular lockups in periods of time or Vista installation problems, only when I use Itunes, Quicktime and Picasa (when accessing Quicktime movies) I get lockups.

This must mainly be in bug in INTELs driver. It should not be possible for any application to cause such errors, even on high load. This should be managed by the driver. Such errors should only occur if there are serious hardware problems. IMHO INTEL has to do a fix.

Jörg

on 19 Apr 2007 at 7:58 (Sydney) 24.Victor said …

Hi Jorg,

I have also a DELL 9200 with vista home premium. Same problem, system is stable until I use quicktime to play movies. It is an issue in the driver but I am still waiting for intel to release an update. Quicktime alternate is also not stable on my system but less dramatic.

on 20 Apr 2007 at 19:53 (Sydney) 25.Joa said …

Hi- I have the same problem but I use a P965 Platinum board from MSI. Raid1 on two WD Raptor 74GB disks. Iastor timeout errors and I had to rebuild the Raid twice. All drivers updated, I tried the registry patch from Intel WITHOUT success. I contacted Intel support but no reply yet (2 days). This is annoying me BIG time and I’m about to go back to using XP soon, very soon. Microsoft, Dell, and all the motherboard manufacturers will loose a Lot from not putting pressure on Intel for a solution (I have good reason to believe Intel drivers (Iastor) causing this). So spread the word and contact all support forums and suppliers you can!!!!

I got a mail from INTEL support today, saying that they know about the issue with quicktime and itunes. There is no fix at the moment and they are doing some research. They say that’s 3’rd party software and everything else is running fine under vista.

They recommend to visit their website regulary to get updates on this issue.

Has anybody some other piece of software, which produces the error. It must be reproducable. So I can send it to INTEL to support their research.

Hello,
I have have just acquired a DELL Dimension 9200 and I have the same problem.
Event 9 on iastor with Vista Ultimate x32.
And that is from the first start. The computer Freeze during about 10 seconds. And especially when there is much access disc.
– I put has days the Pilot provides on the INTEL bond, but that does not have anything to change.
– To erase the key of register, either!
– Check disk …

nothing better

FranZZ

on 27 Apr 2007 at 6:50 (Sydney) 29.Docrico said …

Hi Jorg
I have this problem on a Dell 9200. I think it happened on iTunes when i first used it (not used it on my latest rebuild!) but it happens on Picassa2, Canon’s Zoombrowser, Adobe Photoshop elements 4.
The common factor I noted is that these programs all run some intensive file indexing activity involving lots of read/write to the hard drives. Perhaps this is what is revealing the bugs that make the RAID system fall over.
Hope this is useful.

on 27 Apr 2007 at 8:22 (Sydney) 30.Charles said …

I can confirm problems with iTunes associated with using iTunes and/or QT under Vista on a Dell Dimension XPS 410/9200 under Vista, even with just one hard drive installed.

I am not aware of another application that causes similar problems. Sorry. But I would refer you to this post for some clues of what is happening under the hood when huge disk IO time lags are experienced.

I also have problems with iTunes and Quicktime in Vista – specifically, the computer freezes up and after a few stumbles ends up blue screening when I try to import my (8GB) music library. Playing videos in Quicktime also trips it up.
I have an Intel G965WH with Core 2 Duo E6600 and 2GB of RAM, running 5 HDDs of various brands / sizes, and I experience problems in both Vista Ultimate 32 and 64bit versions.

on 27 Apr 2007 at 14:56 (Sydney) 32.Adam said …

I forgot to add I’ve tried the Intel fix (the registry editing) and I still get the same problem.

on 30 Apr 2007 at 9:28 (Sydney) 33.Dan said …

Richard and Adam,

I have similar problems to you Adam. I have an Asus P5B deluxe and am trying to do raid 5 on the ICH8r w/ Vista. I had some issues getting things installed (as many others have had), but after that everything seemed fine. That is at least until I try running itunes. After a couple hours of listening to music I generally get a BSOD complaining about IASTOR.SYS, fun…

What is even better, is when I reboot one of my SATA disks is always marked as bad and my raid 5 is degraded. After manually marking the drive as ok in the intel matrix software and waiting several hours for a rebuild, everything seems fine again until I start listening to itunes again.

I’ve had this itunes leading to BSOD leading to raid degradation 3 times now. The last time after rebuilding the raid array Vista appears to have gotten corrupted so it looks like I need to do a complete re-install.

FYI, before this last time I tried the intel registry fix. I still think their drivers are bad. The only other thing I can think of is perhaps it is an interaction w/ the soundchip drivers (and that is why it happens w/ Itunes). I saw new beta drivers on the asus site that came out on 4/17 so I might give those a try before I re-install. I think I’m either about ready to give up on raid or give up on my mobo and just go get a mobo that has an nvidia chipset or something.

on 01 May 2007 at 11:56 (Sydney) 34.CropNPrecision said …

For the non-RAID users out there who are reading this with brand new Dell Precision 390 – Vista Ultimate, my entry within the Dell Forum identifies success with the Intel Storage Manager Registry edit fix.

Although the intel site only talks about one of these keys, it seems people have reported success by deleting both of them.

on 02 May 2007 at 9:45 (Sydney) 36.Robert said …

I’ve finally had it.

I can confirm that I’d deleted *BOTH* iaStor and iaStor(V) keys from the registry as instructed by the Intel site, and still had a RAID 1 failure last night from event timeouts.

I’ve given up on RAID for now and rebuilt my system for the 4th time in 2 weeks but this time with no RAID.

I have an ASUS P5B-E (with ICH8R RAID) motherboard.

on 03 May 2007 at 15:56 (Sydney) 37.Jerry said …

I think I’m having the same problem on an MSI 975X Platinum Powerup Edition. I’ve installed the latest Intel Matrix Storage Manager v6.2.1.1002 & deleted the parameter keys from both iastor and iastorv. I’m running 64-bit Vista Business & have a Maxtor STM3320620AS drive on port 0 and 1 of the controller. Vista installed fine & normally runs without problem. However, whenever I open Picasa to try to index and browse my large digital photography library, Windows freezes after a few seconds of hard drive thrashing. After a few minutes of sitting frozen, it reboots & the RAID BIOS reports a RAID failure. I choose to correct it & can then boot windows, mark the second drive as normal, and rebuild the array (which takes all night). I do not get an event 9 in my event logs, but perhaps it’s because the event can’t be written out? I haven’t lost any data yet, but this is pretty scary. I haven’t tried iTunes or Quicktime yet, nor do I have any other programs that index or otherwise heavily use the drives, but opening Picasa reliably freezes the system & triggers an array failure. Based on the problems reported here, I don’t think it’s bad drives. Ugh.

on 04 May 2007 at 20:22 (Sydney) 38.tony d said …

I was having problems with raid 0 on dell xps maxtor disks running slow after vista installed. vista experience score 2.7 on disk, but used Intel fix and now 5.9 on score. with noticable speed read write difference.
Thank you heads up on fix.

on 05 May 2007 at 11:42 (Sydney) 39.murff said …

intel’s fix would not work for me and my 250gb samsung hd’s in a raid 5 config. im still looking for a new idea before i go out and buy new drives.
**** 955xbk***

on 06 May 2007 at 1:15 (Sydney) 40.Daniel said …

Hi, guys, this is just my experience with the issue, in case it helps someone. I put together a new PC a week ago with an Intel Q965 Guardfish mobo + 3x 320 GB Seagate HDs in RAID 5 config. Installed Vista and initially had no issues whatsoever – the drives even scored 5.9 on the Vista experience test. After about 4 days, one of my drives was detected as “failed” by the matrix driver. I suspected that this wasn’t a hardware failure, so I marked the drive as normal and waited for the rebuild (+- 30 hours!). Afterwards everything seemed fine for a about 2 hours, but then the drive was marked as failed again. I bought a replacement drive, put it in, and after a few minutes (during the rebuild) it too was marked as failed, which confirmed that it’s not a hardware issue. At that point I found Intel’s advice as well as this site. I took out both registry entries as suggested, rebooted, marked the same drive as normal and rebuilt again. It’s now been a day since the rebuild and so far no issues / ioStor timeouts in the event log. Speaking of event logs, looking back I can see that the ioStor timeouts started occuring before I noticed (when the drive was first marked as failed). This is what was strange to me – I hadn’t noticed any performance degradation prior to that (which is what most people are reporting), and I even spent about 5 hours trying out various games to see what my new PC could do. Also, the problem seems to be Vista specific – I have another PC which has XP and Raid 1 (same mobo, same drives), and so far no issues for over a month.

I’m hoping that the PC now holds together… I’ll post back if the issue resurfaces. In any case, thanks for this site, it stopped me from tearing my hear out (or installing XP as a work around).

on 09 May 2007 at 4:14 (Sydney) 41.Håkan Andersson said …

There seems to be a new version of Intel Matrix Storage Manager released (7.0.0.1020). Dont know if it fixes the problem but it could be worth a try.

While my system (Dell 9200 with vista home) is stable in general. Intel RAID controller still gives errors and timeout problems when playing quicktime movies from RAID. Seems quicktime\Intel Matrix\Vista is still not working 100%

on 09 May 2007 at 6:07 (Sydney) 43.JRP said …

Everything was fine since I moved them to ports 2 and 3 on the 14th of April – then it started failing again.

Hi – I’ve had this problem twice now. I’m on an MSI 965 board, with two 320Gb Seagates. I haven’t tried any of the fixes yet. In both instances the computer froze and crashed while engaged in intense HDD activity (last time it was doing a musicIP index of all my MP3s).

Is there a correct technique for rebuilding the RAID? This second time I had some corruption, probably because I set the volumes to ‘normal’ before doing a verify and repair first.

on 10 May 2007 at 5:05 (Sydney) 46.Jörg Holzapfel said …

Thanks Victor, the hotfix worked for me too. No more Events 9 and 5 from iaStor in my eventlog. First I was a little bit sceptic because the fix adresses a different issue, but it worked. I haven’t done much testing, but Quicktime movies which caused errors in the past are now running smoothly. Seems that we got it. Great. I’ll do some testing and post an update here.

on 10 May 2007 at 16:05 (Sydney) 47.Jerry said …

I haven’t been able to find the 64-bit version of hotfix 932094 on any of the usual hotfix sharing sites. I don’t suppose anyone has this, or will I have to actually call MS…

I’m having the same problem, trying to build a RAID10 array on a Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 with and Intel ICH8R and 4x 500GB Maxtor drives (the RE16 versions that are supposed to be RAID approved).

My problem is that I can’t even complete the Vista install (Ultimate x64). I typically fails just before loading the desktop for the first time. Is there a way to edit the registy before getting to the desktop?

First to answer my own question from my previous post, you *can* edit the registry during the Vista Installation. Simply press SHIFT+F10 at any point to bring up a CMD window, then type REGEDIT and hit Enter.

I did a number of things to resolve this, and I can’t say say for sure if it required them all, or just a subset, but this is what I did.

4) Toward the end of the install (prior to any reboots) I pressed SHIFT+F10 to bring up a CMD window, then used Regedit to delete the “Parameters” key under *both* iaStor and iaStorV. I *also* deleted the “Enum” key under iaStorV *only* (I didn’t touch the “Enum” key under iaStor). This part was tricky only in the sense of getting the timing right. I litterally finished deleting the keys just as the PC began to reboot as part of the install.

To my complete shock and surprise, the install completed successfully, and I’ve just finished loading all of my drivers and running the built in performance test (got 5.9 scores across the board except for memory, only 5.5 there). I’ve been checking eventvwr and so far I haven’t seen any iaStor errors or warnings. Of course I haven’t installed or used any applications yet, so it might be too early to tell. After more failed install attempts than I care to count, I am absolutely thrilled to have this work now. Thanks so much for hosting this info and discussion, I never would have succeeded without the info I found here!

I purchased a brand new dell dimension 9200 two months ago, firstly i found the SATA cables disconnected from the drives once this was resolved i noticed Vista was very jerking intermitent freezing. This was from what i could see was being caused by the fact that Dell install the Google desktop search engine in the pre build, this is already in Vista by default. Uninstalled it and the jerky screen stopped. I also carried out the DVD SATA cable swap around to port 4 and 5.

I decided to scap the Dell install and rebuild the PC from scratch after a bad Nero install, i used the Dell recovery cd, once built i installed Itunes and patched the PC fully with all the Dell and MS patches but every time i played a Video in Itunes the PC either froze or blue screened.

I got in touch with a mate of mine in MS and got the unofficial patch and low and behold everthing works fine now.

I beleive Dell are installing this patch on the pre-builds as i only had the issue when i used the recovery cd to rebuild the PC.

If some one has some where i can put the file, its all yours to try.

on 20 May 2007 at 17:35 (Sydney) 57.yosoyyo said …

Hi djandyh,

>I got in touch with a mate of mine in MS and got the unofficial patch and >low and behold everthing works fine now.

what’s the filename? It might already be available for download somewhere.

on 25 May 2007 at 2:50 (Sydney) 58.Bob said …

Hi,
I was getting the freezing problem and array failure when I tried to get a video podcast. I tried the following
moving the disks to different ports – no change
Upgraded Matrix Manger – no change
Deleted reg keys – no change
Applied MS 932094 hotfix – works perfectly.
I picked up the hotfix from http://hotfix.xable.net/download/index.php?dir=Language%20Neutral/Vista/

on 26 May 2007 at 2:40 (Sydney) 59.JRP said …

Applied Windows6.0-KB932094-x86 – seems to have worked.

Gawd this is pissing me off, I can’t believe Intel have done nothing to resolve this.

on 27 May 2007 at 0:48 (Sydney) 60.Ian Birch said …

I just wanted to post to say thanks for writing and investigating this issue, the registry fix you linked to has solved my problems.

I have a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS4 rev 2.0 and recently bought a second Western Digi 500GB SATA drive. I figured I’d use RAID-0 for performance reasons but found Vista to run like a dog – hanging about when right-clicking and just general slow file copy performance.

I deleted the Parameters key, rebooted and now its running great!! A rather large HD movie file that was estimating to take over 30 mins to copy from one SATA drive to the RAID array now takes less than 10 mins – huge improvment! Thanks agan.

After 3 months of a perfect vista installation i have just reinstalled – and now have the problem 20% time freeze at vista boot! GA965P DQ6, 3 HITACHI SATA 2 Drives not raided but using ahci mode from intel controller
So whats changed in the last 3 months – drivers and bios, and some hardware i added Akas multi card reader and sata dvd drive. After 8 reinstalls this weekend i have found what lead to my problem incredible but true! It was a setting in the registry called ‘Legacy USB storage detect’ Its now disabled and i have a stable system.
The card reader was added a month back on a fully okay vista install, it did not cause an issue until the clean install where 20% of boots would elad to vista boot freeze as the green loading bar starts. turning off usb legacy detect has resolved for me.

on 31 May 2007 at 6:27 (Sydney) 63.mwoe said …

I’ve deleted the registery keys in safe mode, but the values are there again after a restart. Is this normal?

on 01 Jun 2007 at 21:29 (Sydney) 64.Paul Kiddie said …

After running Vista successfully for about a month, my system hung yesterday with a STOP error and the Intel RAID BIOS reported an error on one of my RAID 0 drives. These are Seagate Barracuda 7200.9’s. Came across this thread on my search for the root of the problem and just checked out the event log with many many references to iaStor not responding.

Strangely enough I can actually reproduce this in Google Talk of all things, if someone sends me a large file. It seems to trigger (iaStor not responding errors in the log) when it copies the file from the temporary folder over to the actual location the file should be at.

Going to try and update my Intel drivers now to see if that makes any difference!

on 07 Jun 2007 at 5:40 (Sydney) 65.Bill Tidwell said …

I could not install Vista on P5B-D with 3 HD (all WD) under any circumstances, not even in IDE mode, even using only SATA connectors 3-5. In desparation, I connected only the boot HD (a raptor) to connector 5, and bingo! installed with no problem in AHCI mode. Then reconected the two other non-boot HD on connectors 3 & 4 (the two black connectors) and A-OK. CDR on SATA 1

on 10 Jun 2007 at 2:25 (Sydney) 66.Peter Cooper said …

Just had this problem and managed to work around it thanks to this page. Turned out the problem was an old(ish) maxtor drive i chucked in while building the system. Disconnected the data cable and vista is now installing on a 100gb partition of the raid 5 volume.

I may try upgrading the maxtor’s firmware at some point but don’t really want to risk the data.

Anyway thanks for collecting all this info in one place.

on 11 Jun 2007 at 23:35 (Sydney) 67.Peter Cooper said …

Quick update: My motherboard had a single seperate SATA connector which is part of the IDE controller rather than part of the INTEL ICH8. Connected my maxtor to this and the system continued working with RAID.

on 15 Jun 2007 at 2:53 (Sydney) 68.Steve said …

FIXED!

I was having this problem too and tried the hotfix from MS, which did not fix the problem. Last night, out of curiosity I went on the Dell support site and to my surprise there was a driver update for the Intel SCSI, and a new version of the Intel array manager dated June 12th. I applied these and now, everything works great.

Hope this helps!

on 17 Jun 2007 at 21:47 (Sydney) 69.Håkan Andersson said …

The new version (7.5.0.1017) was also posted on the Intel webiste on June 4 2007. I have not dared to try it yet though as the RAID problem is no listed in the readme as a problem that has been fixed.

Anyone willing to give a try? I simply don’t trust them not to screw it up again…

on 28 Jun 2007 at 5:52 (Sydney) 73.Bart said …

I’m having this issue on 2 servers (same hardware) with Windows server 2003,with all latest service packs and updates, Intel Matrix 7.5.0.1017.
The time-outs and reboots always occured when the server was idle.
I kind of solved the problem (rather a workaround) by keeping the harddisk busy. I run this script (keep_working.cmd):

Give it a shot and report back. I haven’t had reboots since 2 weeks, while before, I had reboots every night.

Good luck,
Bart.

on 02 Jul 2007 at 12:30 (Sydney) 74.Jason said …

Håkan, Ugo, Robert,

Read up a few replies prior to your own, you’ll see that I’ve been using the 7.5.0.1017 Intel Drivers since May 12th (prior to their official release on the Intel site) and I believe they are what enabled me to use my RAID 10 on an ICH8R motherboard. And I’ve even used iTunes on this PC, no RAID problems anymore.

on 05 Jul 2007 at 7:04 (Sydney) 75.ryan said …

Has there been any additional firmware updates for this problem? I’ve been unable to install vista64 b/c of this issue. XP64 works OK, but after installing the Intel Matrix Storage Console was “verifying” the raid1 that I have – I removed the Parameters key under IASTOR – there was no IASTORV and it seems to be relatively stable now. I’m thinking of returning the Maxtor drives to see if it’s any more stable.

on 15 Jul 2007 at 0:17 (Sydney) 76.Ugo said …

Jason,

the 7.5.0.1017 Intel Drivers doesn’t solve my problem. I’m going to buy an X38 motherboard when it will come out.

Ugo

on 17 Jul 2007 at 0:56 (Sydney) 77.Dave said …

I have an Abit AB9 Pro and am using all the ICH8R ports. I have 2 x Seagate 500GB disks in a mirror and 4 x 250GB disks in a raid 5 array. The RAID 5 array is made up of 3 x Samsung and 1 x Maxtor. The mirror uses ports 0 and 1 and the Raid 5 array uses all the higher ports.

I made a fresh install of Vista on the mirror with no problems at all. However, I cannot see the RAID 5 array in Vista. When I go into the Intel Matrix app it says everything is working fine, but all I can see is the mirror. I kept my old XP partition (also on the mirror) and can still see all disks in the RAID 5 array from XP.

I have installed the latest Intel 7.5.0.1017 drivers, upgraded my bios and deleted the registry files suggested as a fix by Intel and still cannot see the RAID 5 array in Vista…

I am now thinking of replacing my Maxtor drive with another brand. Does anyone have any comments about whether they think this will work or not…?

Thanks,
Dave

on 20 Jul 2007 at 12:39 (Sydney) 78.Don said …

I have fixed the problem I was having with SmartSound and QuickTime. After a little research looking for possible problems when playing a wav file it would cause massive hard drive activity. I have discovered the the problem was with the Intel® Matrix Storage Manager RAID/AHCI Software/Drivers. I down loaded the latest version 7.5.0.1017, installed the drivers, rebooted and everything thing now works great!

The problems eventually lead to disk corruption. I can’t tell you how many times I have had to reinstall Vista and rebuild my VM’s because they are corrupted.

I called Dell and they were unaware of the issue and had me jump through a ridiulous amount of useless hoops like a circus poodle.

Eventually I found the Intel article and passed it on to Dell.

I made the registry changes to ALL instances of the Intel driver but it didn’t help. Dell still closed my case and refuesd to work on the situation any longer.

I have been religiously checking for new BIOS firmware and new versions of Intel Storage Manager and apply them when they are available. The good news is that the system doesn’t blue screen anymore, but I still get the IASTOR timeout errors which lead to disk corruption.

I looked for new firmware for the SAMSUNG hard drives as well, but on SAMSUNG’S website they explain that they don’t release firmware because all their products have been tested, blah blah blah.

So here I am six months later with a Dell PC that is unusable for either school or work and neither Dell, Intel nor Microsoft is either able or willing to do anything about it. It’s enough to make one want to switch to a Mac — and I don’t like Macs!

Even though I deleted the parameters folders in the registry it continues. The Intel article mentions disabling LPM, but so far I haven’t figured out how to do this in Windows.

on 31 Jul 2007 at 23:00 (Sydney) 80.Hermes said …

I’ll add some fuel to the fire since this has been a helpful thread. I have an MSI P965 board (ICH8R) and cannot install Vista Ultimate x64. I’ve gone through 4 DVD drives (NEC, Pioneer, LG) including one that worked fine through all the Vista Betas. I have tried countless DVD burns of the ISO & a USB flash drive as install media. Drives are WD5000ABYS. BIOS and drivers are all up to date. The Intel article/workaround does not resolve the installation issues.

7.6 fixed it for me. The problem is actually mentioned in the release notes.

on 14 Aug 2007 at 1:54 (Sydney) 84.Guy said …

Using the latest Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 M/B which comes with 2 RAID controllers, 1 of them is Intel ICH9R controller for RAID 0,1,5,10 & JBOD and the other controller is Gigabyte SATAII for RAID 0 and 1 only.

I bought 2 x Seagate Barracuda ES 320GB SATAII drives to run RAID 1 off the Intel ICH9R for the O/S and i bought 2 x Seagate Barracuda ES 500GB SATAII drives to run RAID 1 off the Gigabyte SATAII controller for backing up music and pics etc.

Using Vista Ultimate 32 bit, Intel QX6700 CPU, 4 x 1GB DDRII Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC8500 1066MHz, Gigabyte 8800GTS 640 PCI-E, Gigabyte Odin GT 800w PSU. The system runs great so no issues with hardware & i love the Vista o/s it’s really sweet without any problems whatsoever except when i tried to run the arrays from a clean install.

I did an install of Vista with RAID disabled to check PC system works as i built it myself 100% brand new from the ground up (1st time builder) and after Vista was installed and all was good i tried another clean install with the 2 x 320GB HDD for a RAID 1 setup on the ICH9R and disconnected the 2 x 500GB HDD for the G/SATAII so as not to get too confused but still without any luck on the ICH9R. I had to disable all RAID modes in BIOS to get Vista to boot up correctly but first i had to clear the CMOS as it didn’t recognise the drives anymore after trying to setup an array.

I have copped a few of the symptoms that other people have mentioned including mostly not being able to enter the RAID configuration setup because pressing >Ctrl-l

on 20 Aug 2007 at 12:14 (Sydney) 85.David said …

I spent 2 days working on this and downloading the new Intel driver fixed my problem. I have a Dell XPS-410 with two 500G drivers running in mirror. I was experiencing freezing problems with iTunes and QuickTime running video. After launching the video, it would start playing with sound then the pc would hang for 20-30 seconds and the video would again play with the timeline advance the amount of the hang time. This would continue until the elapsed time for the video. The problem was present both in QuickTime and iTunes. I did not have a problem with MediaPlayer. I isolated the problem to this PC and Vista given I was able to play, through the network, the same videos (which would hang) on a different XP pc off my Dell. Once I applied the Intel patch, the problem went away and I no longer receive the iaStorV errors. Thanks for the fix.

on 08 Sep 2007 at 1:33 (Sydney) 86.Morten G. Simonsen said …

Hi, I just installed Vista using the method, changing the sata ports to a couple of higher numbers. Instead of 1 – 2 I used 5 – 6 (could have used lower numbers i think but did not try) So this workaround works.. Using Maxtor 2x 250gb sata2 will probably change to Seagate in a near future.. So maybe I can use 4 disks again..

on 08 Sep 2007 at 1:35 (Sydney) 87.Morten G. Simonsen said …

Oh sorry forgot specs.. ASUS P5B Deluxe WiFi, RAID 0.

on 14 Sep 2007 at 2:56 (Sydney) 88.Dissapointed Asus User said …

Windows XP 32bit, Windows xP 64 Bit, Vista 32&64 Bit cannot be installed on my System
Hardware Asus P5K-Premium,Intel Q6600 2xWD5000ABYS,
OCZ DDR28500CL5, 2x NEC Optiarc SATA,
First :i need Raid1 for the installation.
i tried to change the sata ports, removed the dvd drives (used Usb), flashed newest bios and tried any version of intel drivers i found (7.01 to 7.6) always with the same result:
Windows XP32 – Crash iastor.sys BSOD while copying windows files or formating
Windows XP64 – Crash during format Drives, and or while
copying Windows Files -iastore.sys BSOD
Vista 32/64 – Bluescreen with the default vista driver for ICH9R also with any Intel Driver
Please Note the same problems occour when AHCI Mode is selected in every Windows Version.
Installing in IDE Mode always worked, but in my case i need a Raid1.

on 26 Sep 2007 at 4:35 (Sydney) 89.Peter Dawson said …

I was on the very VERGE of formatting my HDD and setting my configuration to non-RAID when I came accross your site. Since then I have:

Having iastor timeouts on my Intel DP35DP motherboard on my Home THeater PC. So, apparently the ICH9R is affected also. What a mess.

Running Vista 32 and 7.6.0.1011 Intel Matrix Drivers.

Several-minute lockups with HD LED on and no HD activity. This appears in a system that has been stable for about 2 weeks. Tried switching from SATA3 to SATA5. This worked for a few days, but the problem is back, making my PC useless.

Now trying the registry deletions…

on 29 Sep 2007 at 10:17 (Sydney) 91.Brad said …

Deleted the iastor and iastorv Parameter keys from the registry & rebooted.

The system is slightly more stable, but I still get iastor timeouts about once an hour.

The link to the Microsoft Windows Vista Community discussion isn’t working any more. Anyone knows where I can find that discussion?

on 01 Oct 2007 at 14:58 (Sydney) 93.Brad said …

Switched to IDE mode. Vista automatically loaded the standard MS drivers for SATA drives, and I was able to switch to the Intel drivers by running the Intel Chipset Driver installation program.

Was able to boot, but would continue to get lockups (with the HD LED off instead of on).

Now totally unstable. Started getting power management related BSoDs. Then win32.sys BSoDs. Now I can’t even get into Safe Mode, check Event Viewer, or even run a System Restore off the Vista installation DVD.

My computer is hosed, along with all the data on it.

on 29 Oct 2007 at 4:10 (Sydney) 94.Matt said …

I am getting this same error on Asus P5K-E/Wifi. I have 3 hard drives, 1 seagate 7200.10 ES 320GB HD, and 2 Maxtor 6V320F0 Hard drives. I am unable to boot up in ANY raid configuration, I’ve tried reinstalling about 20 times now with various bios settings (disabling lan ROM, trying different RAID configurations i.e. RAID 0 and RAID5, turning off various ACPI settings, turning on and off Intel Robson enchancement in BIOS). Using latest ASUS BIOS 503 for my P5K-E.

Going to send the motherboard back to newegg as I have not be able to get this to work so far. What a same, INTEL or ASUS needs to fix this issue so that I can get Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit to actually install.

All my system does after using the latest intel matrix storage driver is get to the vista Cyclon Eye (Green status bar) moving back and forth. NOTHING happens. If you try to boot into safe mode it stops at crcdisk.sys

What a bunch of crap.

on 30 Oct 2007 at 8:57 (Sydney) 95.Adam said …

I have the same issues with RAID 1 and iTunes/QT. I have a Dell 8400 with a 80210FBM controller that is not supported by the latest Intel Matrix Storage Manager update (7.6).

Does anyone have any solution since I can’t update to 7.6 (currently running 7.0, the latest for my controller)?

Users of X38 (ICH9R) boards are experiencing this problem too, even with the new 7.8 release of Intel Matrix Storage Manager software.
I have tried the Parameters fix, but that did not work. I’ll give the Ports 3-5 suggestion a go though and report back if it is successful.

on 14 Dec 2007 at 9:14 (Sydney) 97.Peter said …

I’ve had this problem on my Toshiba Qosmio laptop ever since upgrading to Vista. Would cause me to blue screen whenever trying to import video into Itunes. The registry tweak didn’t work for me but seems like all has been sorted with SP1 as installed it yesterday and no more BSOD’s !

on 29 Dec 2007 at 5:38 (Sydney) 98.Bob K said …

I downloaded and installed the SP1 RC date 12/14/2007 yesterday. I uninstalled it today as my Intel RAID did NOT like the results. The machine crashed each time I did any significant activity on the RAID drives which hold my D, E, and F partitions. I even tried the registry “hack” discussed in other posts. Fortunately, my machine is again stable after removing the SP1 RC. I’ve got an Intel DQ965GF, E6700, 4 Gb Adata RAM, Maxtor 320Gb SATA C: Drive, 2 x Maxtor 320Gb SATA RAID 1 D, E, F drives

I forgot to mention that I tested the Motherbord under Win Xp 32 bit and Vista 64 bit

Ugo

on 20 Feb 2008 at 14:32 (Sydney) 102.me said …

I have had this problem with several motherboards: several ASUS P5B models and my current: Gigabyte GA-965P-DS4 rev3.3
I had this problem with these hdd’s:
2x320GB Maxtor
1x320GB WesternDigital
2x500GB WesternDigital

Have tried to use any of the disks on the ICH controller in all modes (IDE, AHCI or RAID). No mather what I do the system is not stable when the disks are connected to the ICH. Generaly, the problems occured during prolonged intensive hdd workload, but in some situations they occured even when there was allmost no disk activity. I have noticed that just before the BSOD there is a sound comming from the HDD as if it has been turned off and back on. Has anyone else noticed such sounds comming from the hdd just before it freezes or BSOD?

Since, I have managed to reproduce the errors in every mode of the ICH, I think that it is actualy related to hardware problem in the ICH or the firmware of the ICH. But, I recently upgraded from 2x1gb to 4x1gb and noticed that the problems are occuring more frequently. This makes me doubt that it might not be a h/w issue.

I have connected 2x500GB to the jMicron controller and disabled everything possible relating to the ICH. Now the system is working in RAID, I have no timeouts (since the ICH is disabled), no hdd data corruption, I can install any OS I choose without any problem.

Long live JMICRON !!!

on 20 Feb 2008 at 14:40 (Sydney) 103.me said …

One more thing ….

I tried to do a “Drive Test” with Ontrack Easy Recovery and noticed that:
1) Each disk is 100% error free
2) When testig the RAID array then there are there are several I/O errors. This might be the reason for the timeouts.

on 27 Feb 2008 at 4:59 (Sydney) 104.ugo said …

At me:

Have you tried to disable the suspend to disk from Vista control panel?

Regards

Ugo

on 29 Feb 2008 at 9:18 (Sydney) 105.me said …

No, I have not tried that.

I have lost a lot of time with this problem and I am tired from the ICH crap. I don’t ever want to even try installing anything on the ICH (at least for the next 5-10 years).

I have found some cheap pci-e sata raid controlers (~15euro) and if I ever need additional sata ports I might try some of them.

on 12 Mar 2008 at 16:38 (Sydney) 106.Alpha said …

After trying several things in last 3 days, this was the solution I did find.

I did use Vista Setup Screen to quick format RAID 0 partitions. It allowed me sucessfully install vista and able to boot with zero problem..

My guess is something wrong with MBR if you do not use Vista Setup Screen. Somehow it can not boot from partitions which formatted by other tools.

Regards
Alpha

on 20 Mar 2008 at 2:48 (Sydney) 107.Jack said …

Could you pls tell me the registry tweak to fix this Intel RAID problem?
Thanks!

For the last 12 months I have needed to rebuild my Vista RAID0 PC at least once every other month. I’ve backed up, so it’s not as stressful as it could be. However, for the last 2 months I’ve had to rebuild every month…For the last few weeks probably every other day and this is after a Vista SP1 install.

Normally what happens:
Disks work fine for ages, then I get a time out error iastor.sys –>
BSOD –>
Intel Matrix Storage Disk failure or disks not bootable (disk read error on start up)

the I have to rebuild / restore.

I have two Samsung spinpoint 401 drives installed as a RAID0 set and have read all the stuff about the Intel Matrix Storage Manager problems. I have the latest BIOS and the latest windows updates as well as trying the drives on different Intel Ports.

I’m beginning to think that this is a hardware problem because for example with the most recent restart…
The machine has a ‘disk read error’ on startup, when I got home after a successful rebuild last night. I try to repair with the vista CD and am told that the boot sector is corrupt. I ignore this and don’t do anything.
I turn the machine off for 30 minutes, turn it back on and it works perfectly!

I’m seriously thinking that this might be a hardware issue now! I could do with some pointers from anyone.

Could this be the error with the Intel drivers (of which I have the latest). I want to try to erradicate any possible driver errors before I start buying a new motherboards and/or new hard disk drives.

Anyway, I’m happy my machine is up and running for ‘n’ number of hours / days!

Cheers

on 02 May 2008 at 13:47 (Sydney) 109.Rick said …

I had the exact same problem you descibe using WD Raptors in RAID 0 on my ASUS P5E. I was always able to install Vista (Ultimate/x64) only after several days I’d get the iastor.sys blue screen. Upgrading to the latest Matrix manager (7.8 1013), moving the RAID Array to SATA ports 2/3, and deleting the registry keys as described above seems to have stabilized my PC…so far. Definitely agree that this is related to power management, as I would consistently have the problem after the PC woke from S3 suspend…Your research was very helpful – Thank you.

Maybe Intel is right. It is the combination of their chipset with the asus motherboard.

on 06 May 2008 at 8:53 (Sydney) 111.simple said …

Hi there!

I have another problem: The ICH9R on my ASUS P5E3 Deluxe works fine with Vista SP1, but I’m not able to install WindowsXP (SP1 or SP2, it doesn’t matter). In an early stage of the installation I get a BSOD. So it seems, Intel has fixed the problem with ICH9R for Vista, but you can’t use XP anymore.

Cheers
simple

on 12 May 2008 at 9:54 (Sydney) 112.chilio said …

Hello there.

I have slightly different problem. I was able to build/install at least 3 systems using VISTA x64 and RAID combinations. Always RAID 0 + RAID 0 or 5.
Using ASUS Comando, ASUS Striker Extreme, ASUS MAXIMUS FORMULA
And recently Gigabyte x48 DQ6.
There are huge issues installing Vista x64 on RAID. Always get the latest drivers in the first place that’s what helped me installing former systems.
Unfortunately I do have a problem with completing installation with Gigabyte mobo.

Because of problems caused by placing the Vista boot record in different drives I decided to install system on 2 Raptors in Raid 0 on separate controller (in this case ADAPTEC 1435). After a lot of hours configuring system installing updates etc. I ‘ve just hit onto the problem:

I tried to connect 4 HDD (RAID 5 infact) to ICH9 on MOBO (the drivers were propperly installed – i had no unrecognized hardware).
Efect – the system doesn’t see the RAID because it has problem configuring the drivers for ICH9 but only if I plug the drives.
The ICH9 driver doesn’t start because of mysterious error parameter unknown. Maybe anyone knows what it is all about.

And… I know the solution. I only need to do new install of the system with all drives conected. (In fact I did it twice already with Comando and Maximus). Someone might think that I got problems because of lack of knowledge, but that’s not my case I live with RAID systems from the beginning and believe me there are even more problems now then 5 years ago.

BUT F.CK we do have 21 century and we really do need sometimes to exchange data between systems, we sometimes do need that type ‘sophisticated’ functionality like attaching new drive to the system.

We are living now in sad times, where clients do work for companies like testers, and receive only buggy hard and software.
Is there any company on the IT world you coud count on? I doubt it.
I used to think that you could rely on Intel, but surprisingly I had even more problems while using their mobo’s.
These days companies struggle to put the products to the market ASAP which causes unbelievable number of errors.

What could we do? Nothing? No you can always stop researching for them.
Stop striving to find the solutions. You can always return the goods to the producers if they don’t meet your expactation. It’ is their task to cure the problem.
It is all crap, believe me. So if you have working system don’t change it because you saw new chipset or technology came to the market – wait and get only reliable solutions, unless you want to be …. by them. (Use the word you like).

Was up until 4:00am last night trying to get Vista to install on a RAID0 stripe. Eventually got it to install, but wow, it was slow! Vista gave the machine’s HDD throughput at 2.2 in the perf results!

Am horrified that Intel have done nothing to remedy this. RAID is all about perf and stability, no? Intel is delivering NEITHER! It’s not as if Vista is new or anything too – it’s been around publicly for over 2 years now.

The ICH6 drivers are still at rev 7.0 despite Intel’s site suggesting that v7.5+ should be installed. They published new v8 drivers a couple of days ago, but the v8 drivers don’t support ICH6.

C’mon Intel – time for you to support your products. Please fix your 7.x drivers too.

UPDATE: I came a lot closer to the real problem yesterday. If I disconnect the one SATA HDD that I have on the JMicron controller (JMB36X), the boot for Win2008 and Vista SP1 will both proceed.

I don’t know if it takes both ICH9R RAID and JMicron SATA HDD to create this problem, but a “problem” it certainly is. At this point, I have a workaround, but it certainly is not satisfactory–I want to use HDD’s on the other controller too!

Problem identified with both the “Native IDE” and “AHCI+IDE” modes of the
JMicron (JMB36X) onboard controller. Issue went away when I:

1. Removed all SATA HDDs from the JMicron
2. Disable the JMicron controller at the BIOS level
3. Use the “RAID+IDE” mode of the JMicron.

This last solution worked well for me. All 5 O/S’es can now use the 1TB
RAID on the ICH9R, and one or both HDDs on the JMicron (I’m currently running
the latter in non-RAID configuration). Apparently, the default SATA IDE
driver of Vista x64 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 cannot handle the JMicron;
and even JMicron’s own Jraid.sys driver has issues when running “AHCI+IDE”
mode. Under the “RAID+IDE”, I get NCQ and hot swap features, even when the
drives are not actually runing in a RAIDset.

Was originally able to install Vista fine (using latest “F6” drivers for both ICH8R and Jmicron controllers) on the first of the two RAID sets. All Windows patches applied and was pleased to see incredible performance numbers for the RAID disks using HDTach. But as soon as you start intense filecopying or moving (either between disks or from the external drive), problems occur. I get timeout errors for “iastor” in the Event log, systems grinds to a halt and eventually BSOD with STOP error in iastor.sys. My problem seems to be very “heavy load” related as is many other peoples problem.

The Jmicron controller on this Gigabyte Motherboard (Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 Rev 3.3) is usually referred to as the GIGABYTE GBX336 RAID controller but is actually a Jmicron made controller. I installed the latest Jmicron windows driver (1.17.38.5) from the Jmicron site and it now shows up as “JMicron JMB36X Controller” in Windows device manager.

For some reason HDTach now shows insane numbers for the WD Velociraptor RAID set, with Sequential Read Speeds peaking at 400 MB/s and burst speed of over 1000 MB/s. Must be software error.

HDTach for the other WD 750GB RAID set show a more (but still good) believable Sequential Read Speeds peaking at 140 MB/s and burst speed of 430 MB/s.

I have also overclocked again with stable results.

Keep in mind that the Registry “hack” and LAN PROM update are still in effect, so I guess if I want to be really scientific I should roll those changes back and see if the problem re-occur. But somehow I’m not so motivated to do that, at least not right now

4. Use the Free Dos version of killdisk on both drives for atleat 30 mins (it will kill all little partitions on the drives and zero most of the sectors)

5. Rebuild the raid0 array (CTRL+I).

6. Launch Vista instal from dvd. At the drive screen load the latest driver for the Intel® Matrix Storage Manager (current v7.0.0.1020). Delete any current partition (if there is any), then make new partion and format it. Press next to start installation.

7. First time you get to desktop enter registies. Delete both Parameter folders from the iaStor and iaStorV registry folders in the the Vista registry.
Locations:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStor

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\iaStorV

8. Reboot. Now you shouldnt experience any system freezes/pauzes, lockups or BSOD’s

I’ve got a Asus P5Q deluxe ICH10r and 2 x Velociraptors. I’ve tried all of your fixes and my system still fails badly. BSOD’s and hangs. Most of the time the array is corrupt and won’t even boot anymore.

This is a rediculous problem and I wish someone would release a firmware update or some kind of a real fix, instead of ignoring it.

Amazing..
Perpetual rebuilds on my RAID-5 and not even a log entry as to why.
I bought 4 new disks to create 1 big RAID-5 volume but i guess after having tried pretty much ANY tip i could find on the internet i will have to go either back to XP or put my drives in non-RAID. (In wich case some people still have problems)

I blame Intel for not logging when a rebuild restarts when it’s already in the rebuild state. It’s realy anyones guess why it does it, it at least could log it.

Maybe it shows a notification.. but i’m not sitting behind my computer while it does it’s 40+ hour rebuild.

I think Intel should be ashamed.
I think Microsoft should be ashamed.

Maybe someone in USA could start a class-action against intel as their Chip/RAID clearly does not function in Vista as advertized.

on 23 Dec 2008 at 9:37 (Sydney) 129.MrMonk-E said …

I think it’s working..
Deleted my 2nd array (the one that kept rebuilding)
Booted into VISTA (On the 1st array)
Created a new array from withing VISTA using the matrix managent tool.
Had it initialize completely, only took 8 hours or so.

I’m scared to say it aloud, but it seems to be ok now.
I’m just scared that *IF* a rebuild is ever required it will go in the infinite rebuilding loop as described above.

Also, i think it is safe to conclude that -since the HW setup is identical- it is not a HW issue but a software issue.

That’s me sorted.
Only took me a week and several light stress related heart attacks.

Best of luck to all who read this, and hopefully my post helps you or at least gives you some hope.

on 23 Dec 2008 at 9:38 (Sydney) 130.MrMonk-E said …

Also, i think it is safe to conclude that since the HW setup is identical it is not a HW issue but a software issue.

^^^^^^^^^^^ My hardware IS identical!!
i just put – around it and now it’s strike trough.. FAIL

on 05 Jan 2009 at 12:01 (Sydney) 131.Roboghost said …

I’ve been dealing with this Intel “raid volume error” too and one thing is the SATA cables can be an issue. I just jiggled them and it went away! One problem is that my SATA cables are seriously squeezed up against the long VGA card and I’m going to re-engineer the cables to fit better (left angle SATA’s etc.) Quality counts on some of your cables for sure. My WD VelociRaptor 2.5-inch are cute, but probably are going to be a technical headache I see and forsee…

on 13 Feb 2009 at 6:43 (Sydney) 132.warner recabaren said …

In under 4 days two seperate clients each having dell vostro 400 computers with intel chipsets/ vista/ raid 1 mirror both failed to boot. Dell offers to replace the hard drive- all the drives pass all tests- they fail to see thats there is an issue comming down with the latest upgrades. To get the system to boot- break the mirror setting the second to not an array disk. Boot- raid software will ask to rebuild- NO- continue and system will boot. Dont know how to get drives bootable as a non-raid (PERMANANTLY) short of reinstall at this time- any ideas?

on 15 Feb 2009 at 7:09 (Sydney) 133.Are Muggerud said …

This is my silver bullett: http://tw.giga-byte.com/Support/Motherboard/FAQ_Model.aspx?FAQID=2372. On my P5K PRO, the Marvell Yukon Pci express gigabit ethernet controller was the problem. I figured it out by starting a stress test (Bart’s stuff) on the ich9 raid 0 and then disabling the ethernet controller in device manager in vista. The system crashed every single time. Then i did the update from gigabyte’s site, it did some changes to the controller and voila.

on 08 Apr 2009 at 4:11 (Sydney) 134.Roland said …

You know what, the problem emerged on my PC after half a year of usage after I accidentally install the Intel Matrix Storage Console, which comes with it new drivers.

Originally when I got iastor timeout Event errors, I reinstalled Vista, using F6 method and deleting parameter registry before Vista finishes the setup by pressing shift+F10? near the end stages of the install. My PC had no problem ever since.

Now I don’t get Windows event errors at all, yet HDD LED light stays on for half a min up to a min in some cases, extremely slow disk access during so, and unpredictable occurrence rate. I have deleted registry, reinstalled Intel Storage Matrix driver, Jmicron driver, etc. Marvell ROM code is rev 14 updated. I am using Asus P5K-E, couple of RAID0 and normal drives and a full usage of the SATA ports.

on 15 Apr 2009 at 19:18 (Sydney) 135.quack said …

Had this issue with my P5B deluxe for 2 years (since I switched from xp to vista actually) : computer working fine but random lockups (vista completely frozen, I had to power off/on the computer).

Last week I updated the intel matrix storage manager with the latest version from the intel web site and now everything is working fine, the freezes are gone !! Shame on you Asus, the beta version you are offering on your web site is crappy.

I am running an amd phenom 9600 on an a770m-a elite group board. My sata raid is not working period. It’s not even reading my dvd rom drive. I read your article with interest but it appears that my Windows Vista basic would be the problem. I have spent hours trying to find a solution on the web with no joy. Can you help me?

on 04 Jan 2011 at 7:45 (Sydney) 138.pcunite said …

On any motherboard using the onboard Marvell Yukon 88E8056 will have stability problems unless it is updated to REV 14 (Marvell PXE 6.60.2.3).

My buddy has a Dell XPS410/Dimension 9200 with Vista 32-bit which was giving a variety of problems, including startup errors and general instability, as Vista has a tendency to do. I tried several fixes, including an in-place upgrade of Vista and a clean install on the existing Vista partition (you know, the one where the existing Windows folder & profile are moved to Windows.old). In both scenarios, the installation stalled out after the reboot around the 67% mark, during Completing Installation. The system hung, the pointer wouldn’t move, fans shut down and the HDD stopped spinning.

A quick scan of the internet revealed that this is a known issue with this particular motherboard/chipset/onboard RAID controller. I tried a variety of install strategies, all including the Load Drivers option early in the install process. I also tried installing Windows 7 and that hung at the same place, so the problem was not a Vista issue.

The problem seemed to be with the drivers for the RAID controller.

After endless web searches and multiple failed install attempts, it finally worked. Here are the steps:

1. Flashed BIOS to 2.5.3
2. Start off with clean hard drive if possible (used WD Data Lifeguard to zero out an existing hard drive)
3. Connected the HDD to SATA port 3 on the controller hub and the DVD to port 4 (suggested on Intel’s site: http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-025783.htm) .
4. BIOS: set Autodetect ATA/SATA
5. Start Windows 7 (or Vista) installation
6. Load Intel Matrix Storage Manager drivers (version 7.5 or later) for 82801HH AND ICH8R from USB thumb drive (leave it in the USB port throughout the install process)
7. Allow OS install to continue through reboot
8. CRITICAL: On reboot just before Completing Installation, change BIOS: SATA
9. Also, change boot sequence to actual HDD (in my case, Maxtor) – you may have to save/exit BIOS setup, let the reboot start and enter BIOS a second time to make the actual hard drive show up in the boot sequence.

If you’re having this same problem, I hope this saves you some pain & frustration.